Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
An ink-jet recording apparatus is widely used for a printer, a multi-functional peripheral, and a copier, for example, due to reasons such as its compactness, inexpensive price, and quietness of operating sound. The ink-jet recording apparatus discharges ink droplets from many nozzles provided to an inkjet head and forms an image on a recording-target medium such as paper.
If ink is vaporized at an ink discharge opening at a distal end of the nozzle, density of ink increases. This may result in clogging of the ink discharge opening. Therefore, the ink-jet recording apparatus includes a cap that caps the ink discharge opening.
At the ink-jet recording apparatus, an interface of the ink is slightly depressed at the ink discharge opening by surface tension, forming a so-called meniscus. The meniscus is broken at considerably small pressure. If the meniscus is broken, a malfunction, such as unstable discharge of the ink, occurs at the ink-jet recording apparatus.
If the cap internal space is sealed with the ink discharge opening capped by the cap, the meniscus is possibly broken by pressure from the internal space. Thus, a structure having the internal space of the cap that communicates with the atmosphere has been proposed.
With this structure, one end of a metal pipe is communicatively coupled to a venthole formed at a cap main body via a cap base to allow the internal space of the cap to communicate with the atmosphere using the metal pipe.